1. I climbed Mt. Fuji on Friday! It was miserable and amazing. On the way up I was trying to make it into something of a spiritual journey and was looking forward to some good personal time at the summit. Unfortunately, toward the top it got very cold and very wet and my time at the summit was spent trying to stay alive. We had hiked about seven hours through the night to see the sunrise and we were only rewarded with dark gray mess turning into lighter gray mess, as shown above. I still loved it.

2. I've been busy with a lot of things, as one would hope to be while in Japan. For those of you who thought we were friends but are now questioning the thought, the lack in communication doesn't mean I hate you. It means I'm a bad friend and you knew that already.

3. I came out to a friend I've made in our group. It was kind of landmark because she was the first straight person I've told that wasn't a best friend or a family member or a Moho group member or a fellow group counseling member. Surprisingly, she said she pretty much knew already but thought I wasn't out to myself yet! I suppose I've been letting myself be more open with true thoughts and feelings recently, even in straight crowds. The fact that I bought a manbag (I prefer "satchel") and jokingly said I wished I could be Cinderella at Tokyo Disneyland are both fairly good hints, I suppose.

4. A billion things have happened in the past few months. Things that I could have written pages and pages about, and perhaps should have. I've gone through interesting phases of loving that I'm gay and hating that I'm gay. I've felt happy about things I've never felt happy about before and cried about things I've never cried about before. I've felt panic and I've felt calm. Things are almost always up, though. It's amazing to think how recently it was that I would go into my room after a thoughtful walk home from school, lock my door, and just cry on my bed. Cry it all out. I love how much I'm growing.

I'm so thankful for my experiences this summer, especially this time in Japan. Although I spend more time doing karaoke and less time meditating than I had planned, I'll soon have a few weeks on my own to ride some trains and see some friends from the mission. I hope I can accomplish something here. I feel it's a time given to me to sort things out. I want to figure out where certain people fit in my life. I want to rediscover my testimony. I want to figure out my approach to life starting this fall. Yeah, a life approach. I can do that. After all, I climbed Mt. Fuji.